8/27/2010 @ 10:25AM

Pimp My Cubicle

When Lee Burbage feels stressed, he turns to the mini Zen garden he’s constructed in his 10-by-10-foot cubicle.

“When I need to be cool, calm and collected,” he says, “I can just talk to my little bonsai tree.” The plant sits on a small red tablecloth he picked up at a Crate and Barrel store near his Alexandria, Va., office. It’s surrounded by three unlit, light blue tea candles that match the blue rocks around the bonsai.

Burbage, 39, is head of human resources at the online investment advice company The Motley Fool. He’s also one of 42 million Americans who spend most of their waking hours in cubicles. Instead of succumbing to depression induced by those chest-high gray, beige or blue partitions ubiquitous in Cubicleville, Burbage has transformed his space into a comfy, individualized refuge.

“You spend more time in your cubicle than you do at home,” notes Kelley Moore, the author of Cube Chic: Take Your Office Spacefrom Drab to Fab! “If you design your space in a creative way that inspires you, it will inspire you to be more productive.”

Along with Moore and Burbage, we canvassed a New York employment lawyer named Edward Hernstadt and several other thoughtful folks to come up with advice for those who want to decorate their partitioned workspaces to please themselves without displeasing their colleagues.

First rule of thumb: Look around the rest of the office you work at and note what your colleagues have done. At The Motley Fool, pretty much anything goes, Burbage says. Every one of the 225 employees at The Fool, as they call it, sits in a cube, including the chief executive. Not even flashing holiday lights and balloons are frowned upon.

But many offices, particularly those of law and accounting firms, are far more conservative. Either a written or unwritten policy dictates that workers keep their style toned down.

Jonathan Spaet, senior director of advanced advertising at Viamedia, suggests you stick to what he calls the “three P’s and a C”–photos, plants, post cards and calendars, that is–which are all safe bets in a cube. Make sure the photos depict appropriate scenes. Don’t post a beach vacation shot, for instance, that shows you in a bikini. “The rule is, if you can’t wear it to work, don’t capture it on your wall,” he says.

Edward Hernstadt, a partner at the New York law firm Hernstadt Atlas, offers a further caveat. “You have virtually no First Amendment rights in a cubicle,” he says. “A sense of humor is not protected.” Putting up any kind of image that mocks your boss or any colleague is considered reasonable grounds for firing, he advises. Worse, you can open yourself up to a sexual harassment or defamation suit. “If you use Photoshop to create a picture of a colleague getting intimate with a donkey,” he says, “that could be construed as defamatory per se.”

Granting that cautionary note, you can still show some creativity. Kelley Moore suggests you start by expressing a little flair on the organizational front by using brightly colored file folders and linen-covered containers from
Target
or The Container Store.

When it comes to lighting, don’t feel you have to settle for those brutal overhead fluorescents. Bring in a lamp with a soft shade. Ikea offers an array of low-cost choices.

Most important, says Moore, are those beige dividers. “If my space is gray and drab,” she says, “all I’ll think about is ‘How do I get out of here and when am I going on vacation?’” The solution? Bring your vacation into your cubicle. Find an ocean scene or fall leaves printed on posterboard, and stick it up on your cubicle wall. Or try your favorite wallpaper, attached with Velcro. Just leave that bikini shot at home.